


Recognition

by Lyledebeast



Series: The W: Collected Allan/Guy/Marian/Robin One-shots [3]
Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dominance, F/M, Hand Jobs, Infidelity, Introspection, Light Angst, Lots of Mentions of Robin, Marriage of Convenience, Mentions of Marian/robin, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Pregnancy, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 10:44:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5825506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyledebeast/pseuds/Lyledebeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guy does something unexpected and Marian encourages him to do it again.  With honest conversation.  And a lot of cock-touching.</p><p>Some scenes from this fic are included in In the Absence, but with significant changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recognition

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine. All characters belong to Tiger Aspect Productions and the BBC.
> 
> This is a sequel to my fic Another Side, but also a bit of a teaser for a longer fic that I would like to write if I ever have time. 
> 
> In Another Side, we find that Marian's marriage to Guy happened, but she has since become estranged from him and told him that she is in love with Robin. Between that fic and the time in which this one is set, Robin has discovered a plot to kill King Richard in the Holy Land enacted by someone other than the Sheriff. He and his gang go to warn/rescue him, but Guy, Vaisey, Marian, Allan--all the fun morally compromised characters!--stay behind. A few weeks after Robin's departure, Marian realizes that she is pregnant. To avoid a scandal that would scar her reputation, she begins living at Locksley with her lawful husband.
> 
> This fic contains a lot of shifts in tense. That's necessary because I wanted to show some progressions in Guy and Marian's relationship between when they started living and sleeping together to now, nearly three months later. It is something I'm open to revising if it's confusing.
> 
> The long fic would take us from Marian's discovery to Robin's return, many months later. Will Marian feel the same about him? About Guy? Drama, drama. Drama.

It had started with the apples.  Even though Marian was finding the morning sickness easier to deal with more than two months into her pregnancy, fruit was one of the few things that never upset her stomach, and it was fortunate that the apple harvest had begun in the orchards around Locksley.  Matilda, to whom she had gone to visit as soon as she suspected, had forbidden her to get on a horse until after the child was born; thus she was barred from travelling further than she could walk. So of course she had been delighted by Guy’s gift of an entire bushel for her exclusive use two days ago.  Not delighted enough to quiet her suspicions, though.

“How did you get these, Guy?” she inquired sternly. “Did you pay the farmer for them?”

He looked away sheepishly.  “I . . . requisitioned them.  For you.”

The last sentence failed to soften her expression; her frown deepened. “That sounds like a ‘no’ to me. Guy, we’ve talked about this.”

He began fingering at the clasps on his gloves nervously, but remained silent.  He had tried the argument with her before that, since Locksley was his, everything the peasants on it produced was also his, only to receive a terse “If they’re yours, take care of them!” in return.  And then she had refused to sleep with him. She knew didn’t want that punishment repeated. 

After watching him squirm for a couple of minutes, Marian took pity on him, pulling out a chair from the table and inviting him to sit. She sat next to him and leaned forward to put her soft white hand on his leather-clad one.

“I appreciate the gift, Guy.  But someone had to spend hours in the hot sun picking these apples, and run the risk of getting an injury that could prevent them from working.  That effort should be rewarded, and we are in a better position to do that than most people.”

He looked up at her hopefully at the mention of “we.” Although he knew that he and Marian were only keeping up the charade of a happily married couple until Robin returned from the Holy Land, it still never failed to lift his spirits when she spoke of them as a unit.

“Shall I . . . should I take them some gold tomorrow?” he asked hesitantly. She felt her eyes widen in shock, and that drew a small smile from him. While she had noticed him speaking to his servants more kindly, he had never offered to pay his peasants before.  It was so unexpected she wasn’t sure how to respond.

“I . . . yes.  I think that would be best.  They’ll be very thankful.”

Guy gave a look of displeasure at that and opened his mouth to speak, no doubt to say “I’m not doing it for their thanks,” Marian suspected, but stopped himself in time. He was definitely learning.

That night, she had invited him to come up to bed after he had given the final orders to his men, but pretended to be asleep when he arrived.  She always felt a bit cruel when she did that, but sometimes the idea of exchanging the last words of the day with him felt just too intimate, too much like something that should be reserved for her true husband.  It was in the evenings that she missed Robin most.  Usually, this made her want to pass the night in silence, but sometimes—more and more often, in fact—it made her cling to Guy for comfort.

The next evening, he had told her over dinner that he’d paid the farmer’s wife for the apples.  She felt a surge of pride in him, but managed to contain it under a cool veneer, limiting her reply to a simple “Good.” After all, why should she lavish him with praise for simply doing the right thing? He should have been paying his peasants from the beginning, knowing how much they were being squeezed dry by the Sheriff’s taxes.  Still, that night when he came to bed, she had laid her head on his chest and allowed him to put his arm around her and stroke her hair until he fell asleep.  As much as she believed acts of goodness should be their own reward, she couldn’t help wanting to encourage behavior that she knew must feel foreign to him. Also, his fingers in her hair had felt wonderful and the steady thump of his heartbeat had lulled her into a sleep faster and deeper than she usually had.

While she believed Guy had done what he said, it did not prepare her for what had happened earlier that day. She was slicing an apple in the kitchen when the servant opened the door to the very farmer’s wife Guy had paid the previous day.  When she saw Marian, she immediately began thanking her profusely for _her_ generosity in sending her husband to pay for the apples. “I never thought I’d see the day when Sir Guy would take any notice of us expect to get something, let alone pay for it,” she had said, followed with a quick “meaning no disrespect, of course, my lady,” and courteous nod.  “Perhaps Sir Guy is kinder than you think,” Marian had proffered sagely.  The truth was that she was almost as surprised as the woman, though for a different reason.  She couldn’t remember the last time she had gotten credit for her acts of charity herself, and this hadn’t even been her idea.  Not that she had told the woman that.  She had never sought recognition and gratitude before, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy it now. She often regretted that she could no longer perform acts of charity as the Night Watchman without endangering more lives than just her own, but an idea began to form in her mind. Perhaps now, rather than working around Guy, she could work through him.

While waiting for Guy to come to bed that night, she found herself hatching a plan. Rather than reproaching Guy for doing the wrong thing under his own volition, she would make suggestions that urged him towards doing the right thing, whatever she judged that to be under the circumstances.  She had never had any success in getting him to openly defy the Sheriff, but that didn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t be persuaded to soften the blows he dealt after the fact.  What did he really want more? What the sheriff could give him or what she could?  She felt a twinge of guilt at that thought.  After all, their arrangement was only temporary. But was that really any reason not to do whatever good was possible while she could? Both for Guy and for the villagers.

At that moment, Guy walked in, gave her a tired smile, and began getting undressed for bed.  This was all part of their usual nightly routine. He usually did sleep with her in case an early visitor, like the Sheriff, chose to call.  It wouldn’t do for him to find Guy sleeping by the fire, again.  She would announce that she was going up, and he would give her time to change before coming up himself.  On nights when she allowed him to know she was awake, they would talk about the details of her day while he changed.  She was glad he had never questioned that part of their arrangement. Still, they rarely did more than go to sleep afterwards.

This time, though, when he lay down she edged towards him as she had done the night before, nestling against his chest when he opened his arms to her.

“Margery came to visit me today,” she told him.

“Who?”

“You know.  Margery.  The woman you paid for the apples yesterday.”

“Oh,” Guy said with a yawn. “I didn’t know her name.”

Marian started to ask how he could still not know his peasants names after nearly five years, but decided against it. That would not take this conversation where she wanted it to go.

“She said you told her it was my idea for you to pay her; is that true?”

She felt Guy shift beneath her uneasily. “Yes, I did,” he replied after a minute. “Was that wrong?”

She looked up to see his brows knitted with worry. “Well, it wasn’t the truth,” she replied gently.

He sighed and looked away. “You know . . . Marian . . . I know you don’t like to hear this.  But . . . I only paid that woman because I knew it was what you would think I should do.”

As he finished speaking he looked down as though expecting her criticism, but instead she reached up to touch his cheek, turning his face back towards her.

“It’s true. I do wish you cared more for those who are dependent on you.  But I was thinking . . . after I talked to her . . . does it matter?

He raised his eyebrows curiously. “Does what matter?”

She lifted herself up, sliding her elbow underneath her in order to look at him more directly. “I mean, does it matter why you’re helping people as long as you do it. You know how I feel about the villagers?”

He nodded.

“I would do more for them if I could, but being banned from my horses, I am limited.” Then she paused for a minute before going on. “Guy, I want to ask you something.”

He heaved another sigh.  “Marian, you know I can’t . . .”

“I know, I know,” she interjected, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You can’t be seen to work against the sheriff because it will jeopardize your position and my security. But, Guy . . . what if it was just small things like what you did today?”

This time he frowned, but did not look away.  “I . . . I’m not sure.  How would I know what people needed?”

“Well,” she considered, beginning to rub his shoulder.  “You leave that to me.”

Guy relaxed into her touch, lying back against the pillows again.  “If it would please you . . . I think maybe I could.”

She smiled at him and lay down on his chest again, moving her hand from his shoulder to his belly.  He tensed and she smiled against the fabric of his undershirt.

“What’s the matter, Guy?”

“I . . . nothing.”

She began to smooth the soft cloth with her hand and felt his heartbeat quicken.

“Marian . . . what are you doing?” he asked in a soft, almost awed voice.

Since the three nights she had spent with Guy at the sheriff’s feast in the spring, she found it impossible to deny her desire for him. Although she never let him touch her in turn, and always plunged into remorse immediately afterwards, she occasionally touched him, reveling in the desperate sounds he made and the way his powerful body arched under her hands.  These occasions had been few and far between, and always spontaneous; Guy never had a chance to expect or grow accustomed to them.

She stopped stroking to slip her hand underneath his shirt. Even as his breath hitched with excitement, he started to sit up and move away,.

“What’s wrong?” She glanced up at him with more curiosity than concern.

“Do you have to . . . there?” he asked uneasily, indicating his belly.

“Does it hurt?” she inquired, suddenly worried that he had some internal complaint.

“No.  I just . . . since I’ve been here with you I haven’t gotten the exercise I usually do and I . . . have been losing condition.”

A sense of fondness for him welled up inside her as she noticed that he was blushing, and she couldn’t resist teasing him a little. “Do you mean you’re going soft because of me?”

She grinned as his blush deepened at her words. “Well, I have feeling one part of you is not getting softer,” she continued, and made a point of looking down to his groin where his erection was indeed beginning to press against the confines of his pants. She lifted his undershirt further and ordered him to pull it the rest of the way off before dropping it on the floor. Then she returned her hand to stroke the soft skin just above his waistband, making his breath quicken as his gaze fixed on the movement.

Marian was always amazed at how willing Guy was to be at her mercy.  The man who had courted her two years ago was so awkward, but so insistent, as though he could win her acceptance by a sheer act of will.  It had been infuriating, and before she married him, she worried that he would be equally demanding about sex.  The opposite had proven true; it seemed the longer she knew him, the longer he was willing to wait for her. Sometimes, it pleased her to put that patience to the test.

She dipped her head to press a kiss to the center of his belly and was surprised when he writhed in response.  Encouraged, she kissed him again underneath his navel and then flicked the tip of her tongue over it, drawing a slight shudder from him.

“Stop,” he cried, his voice strained.

She did so, and the pause allowed her to register her own pounding heart. She wanted this; why didn’t he? She frowned up at him with confusion.

“Marian, I . . . it’s too much.  You don’t have to do that.”

“Don’t have to do what?”

He threw his head back to sigh at the ceiling in exasperation, and Marian saw that his blush had darkened and spread to his neck. She knew it couldn’t have been easy to stop her when he was already so aroused.

“Put your mouth on me because . . . just because I agreed to try to help the villagers.”

As his meaning hit home, it was her turn to sigh.  She reached up to rub Guy’s shoulder again, giving herself a minute to calm down and think.  If she were honest, it surprised her that he had taken this long to question her reasons behind these unexpected offers of intimacy.

“Guy,” she began, “my . . . touching you doesn’t have anything to do with the villagers, alright? I do this because I want to.  What you did . . . it pleased me, and now I want to . . .”

“But you don’t have to please me like this,” he interrupted.

“Guy, you’re not listening,” she continued, now sternly. “I’m not doing this just to please you, or bribe you, or whatever it is you think. I am pleased with you; therefore, I choose to reward you in a way that also pleases me.  Unless you’re not interested.  I could just as easily go to sleep.”

It was a lie.  Her pulse was pounding in her ears and she was growing wet and swollen with arousal between her legs.  She would not go to sleep easily, but he didn’t have to know that.

Guy looked her over with what she thought might be suspicion; it was difficult to tell when his pupils were blown with desire and his mouth was slightly open, almost panting.  At length, he looked down at his groin again and gave his assent: “Please.”

“Good.  Now, raise your hips,” she ordered.  He complied and she took hold of his waistband, pulling his pants down enough to let his erection spring free, and smiling at the way it twitched under her scrutiny. He was fully hard, and it didn’t take long for a bead of pre-come to appear at his slit. With a deft movement she collected it on her fingertip without quite touching his head and spread it down his shaft, causing him to buck and groan.  Then she took hold of him in a light grip and stroked until more drops appeared and followed the path of the first one.  His cock was flushed a deep, angry red and he way he hissed at her touch let her know that he was aching with sensitivity. She released him and used both hands to spread his thighs apart, positioning herself between them.

“Marian, you don’t . . .” he protested breathlessly, sensing her intentions.

She smiled sweetly up at him through her lashes. “Guy,” she said gently, “if you speak again to say anything besides ‘stop,’ that’s just what I’ll do.  If you’re uncomfortable, we won’t continue.  Otherwise, let me have my way.”

When he nodded and lay back, eyes closed, she lowered her head again and pressed soft, light kisses along his shaft from base to tip, earning a quiet little moan with each. It was her first time using her mouth on Guy’s cock, and his size gave her some pause. After some consideration, she took the head into her mouth and gave it a gentle, experimental suck.  He groaned loud and thrashed on the bed, and she felt the muscles in his thighs quiver under her touch. A gush of pre-come burst forth to coat her tongue, and she pulled away.  So bitter.  She had never liked the taste, and she had noticed that Guy produced more than Robin did.

She felt a sudden wave of shame that stopped her in her tracks.  She withdrew her mouth, but resumed stroking Guy, the slickness of his pre-come making the motion easy. Taking a moment to think, she realized that the source of her shame was different now.  After she had first touched Guy at the castle, she had been wracked with guilt over doing something so intimate with a man who was not Robin, and enjoying it.  Now, she felt ashamed less because she was touching Guy than because she was making such a sordid comparison between them.  She never imagined that she would have anyone to compare Robin to sexually.  She had assumed that he who was her first lover would also be her last.  And yet, she found herself wholly lacking in regret, and that was its own source of shame.

She was called back into the moment when Guy’s breaths turned to quick gasps and she saw that in her reverie she had been pumping him harder than she intended.  She wrapped her hand tight around the base of his cock, feeling it jerk hard.  He growled in frustration and clenched the bedclothes in his in his fists, but didn’t say a word.

Once his breathing returned to normal, she resumed with long, slow strokes that covered him from balls to tip, and allowed her mind to wander again.  It was Robin who had taught her how to stop a man’s orgasm.  He had done it to himself the first time he had been inside her, and once or twice since.  But it was from Guy that she learned that it hurt.  The first time she had touched him at Locksley, she was still full of resentment over being forced, for the sake of propriety, to share a bed with him again.  When she had squeezed the base of his erection then, he had gaped at her in shock, as though he expected her to still be as ignorant as a virgin.  She had brought him close and stopped him so many times after that that he was sobbing when she finally let him come. While the memory brought guilt with it, it heightened her arousal even now.

She leaned down to suckle at Guy’s tip again and stopped stroking to cup his scrotum.  He gave a ragged sigh and arched his back.  His pale skin was glistening with sweat, giving further definition to his abdominals, and she pulled back to delight in the way they clenched with each gentle squeeze she gave his balls.  He was most definitely not losing condition, regardless of what he thought.

She took his tip into her mouth once more, and this time all his self-restraint was not enough to stop him from bucking his hips, trying to push further in.  She knew her gag reflex was far too sensitive to handle his width at this point, so she released his scrotum to hold his hips down with both hands. With him thus restrained, she couldn’t resist lapping at his slit and frenulum, ignoring the now nearly constant flow of pre-come down his shaft.  He gave a long, pained moan at this assault on his most sensitive part and flung an arm over his face. 

Marian smiled and started pumping him again.  This time, when his breath quickened and his cock began to pulse harder, she cupped his tight balls again and tugged them, drawing them away from his body.  He cried out and pulled on the covers so hard they came loose from the bed.

“Marian, darling . . . please, I can’t,” he pleaded, his voice nearly breaking.

“Shhh, dear heart,” she cooed, continuing to hold his scrotum in her palm.  “You’ve done so well.  This is the last time, I promise.”

And then she started stroking him again, slowly.  Every few strokes she rubbed her palm over the curve of his engorged, almost purple head, causing his mouth to open wide in a silent scream. She would miss this when Robin returned. 

After her encounter with Guy at the castle, she hadn’t been able to shake her desire to feel that power again.  Once, just to humor her, Robin had allowed her to tie him and take full control herself, but it was obvious from the tension in every line of his body that he wasn’t enjoying it.  She suspected that, even if he had, it wouldn’t have been the same.  Guy was twice her size, and he could easily throw her off and take care of himself if he wanted to, but she suspected the thought never even occurred to him.  He loved to have her touch and tease him, and the more controlling she was, the better he seemed to like it.

She felt him growing close again, and this time she released his scrotum and increased the pace of her hand on his cock.  Within a few seconds, his back arched and he spasmed through his orgasm, coating his chest and belly with his release. When he was finished, Marian clicked her tongue at him for making such a big mess, and pushed herself up to sit on the edge of the bed.  After wiping him off with the undershirt she had discarded on the floor and pulling his pants back up, she took a minute to relax, and realized she was breathing almost as hard as Guy.

 Looking over the shoulder, she saw him spread out flat on his back, eyes closed, still twitching lightly through his aftershocks.  He lay unmoving for so long she thought he might be asleep, but then his eyes fluttered open and he smiled at her, reaching out his hand.  She shifted towards him with some difficulty.  While he was boneless with satisfaction, her cunt was so wet she worried it would soak through her nightgown.  Guy always offered to help her find release, and she always refused, but it got more and more difficult each time.  On this occasion, he seemed more willing to accept her decision, because he simply took hold of her hand and brought it to his lips without saying a word. She smiled at him and then lay down with her head on his shoulder again, placing her hand on the side of his neck and gently thumbing over his slowing pulse. 

When she was certain he was asleep, she leaned forward to press a feather-light kiss to his lips.  She still hated herself sometimes for what she was doing to Robin, but she had learned not to take it out on Guy. She suspected she hurt him enough without that. Every time she turned her mouth away when he tried to kiss her, or grabbed his wrist to stop him from slipping a hand under her skirt after she had gotten him off, the stricken expression on his face would tear at her heart.  Yet she felt that her restraint was the last thread maintaining her fidelity to Robin.  She allowed herself to touch Guy because, as much as she enjoyed it, she knew she could stop.  If she allowed him to touch her, that would open a door that she might never be able to close again. She already found herself thinking what she would have considered unthinkable thoughts only two months before.  If Robin should not return, if he should die attempting to save the king, she and her child be well taken care of.  That felt more like being unfaithful than anything she did with Guy.


End file.
